Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing
@pittcp3
Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing at the University of Pittsburgh. Our research helps improve quality, safety, & efficiency of medication use.
New in Health Affairs: opioid hospitalizations fell 2016-2023, unevenly. Hispanic, Native American, Medicaid, and older patients saw smaller drops; deaths and self-directed discharges rose. By CP3's T. Park, T. Anderson. www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/... #OpioidCrisis
New study co-authored by CP3's Bryant Shuey: only 9.6% of U.S. adults with alcohol use disorder got treatment in 2023. Black and African American adults had the lowest treatment rates overall and across most social determinants examined. psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/...
New research from CP3's Kangho Suh: Black youths had lower odds of antipsychotic use before a schizophrenia diagnosis, and lower antidepressant/benzodiazepine use before an MDD diagnosis, vs White youths. Differences emerge before diagnosis. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
New study: VA community care eligibility not linked to more polypharmacy or risky meds in older Veterans overall. Slight uptick in high pill counts among those with mental health conditions. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Oregon Medicaid's 2016 policy capping benzodiazepine scripts at 4 weeks was linked to a substantial drop in long-term use and modest declines in overdose, self-harm, and withdrawal events. Work from Hartung's time as CP3 Visiting Scholar, with CP3's Anderson & Park. www.ovid.com/jnls/lww-med...
New @jamainternalmed.com study: 54% of new heart failure medication prescriptions went unfilled within 7 days of discharge, and only 42% of patients were adherent at 6 months. Coauthored by CP3's Tim Anderson. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... #HeartFailure #GDMT
New JAMA Network Open research (with CP3's Anderson) finds Medicare drug-waste spending dropped to 1.8% before the 2021 refund policy even took effect, then held flat, still costing ~$1B/year by 2023. Refund rules may be maxed out. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
New in Medical Care: Patience Dow (former CP3 postdoc) & Julie Donohue (CP3 faculty) find Medicaid prescription caps linked to 12% higher risk of treatment gaps for opioid use disorder meds across 37 states. Caps may undermine treatment continuity. www.ovid.com/jnls/lww-med... #HealthPolicy
Congrats to CP3's Lucas Berenbrok & collaborator Elaine Mormer on their R13 grant from NIDCD to host the 2nd OTC Hearing Aid & Hearing Self-Care Symposium at Pitt — building on a decade of collaboration!
CP3's Jing Luo led the first RCT comparing glargine vs. human insulin for youth with type 1 diabetes in low-resource settings. Key finding: no significant difference. 🌍 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
CP3's Drs. Donohue, Gellad & Lo-Ciganic joined NIDA experts to explore target trial emulation & digital health tools for SUD research. Read the proceedings here: www.jsatjournal.com/article/S294...
New CP3 analysis (Drake & Donohue) found greater methadone/naltrexone availability raised use among White Medicaid enrollees, but not Black or Hispanic enrollees. 🔍 Access alone won't close OUD treatment gaps. More: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... @jamahealthforum.com
Our latest newsletter is live! We've got conference recaps, speaker highlights, a new machine learning prediction grant, new papers, and more! createsend.com/t/j-1B759B6E...
In this analysis, there were language-based disparities in orders for physical restraints & antipsychotics among hospitalized patients. More investigation is needed to explain and mitigate these differences. Read more @journalgim.bsky.social: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
🆕analysis of dental claims found 1 adverse outcome for every 27 pediatric dental sedation visits, highlighting the need for improved risk mitigation to improve safety in young dental patients. Read more: jada.ada.org/article/S000...
For adults with diabetes, the inclusion of HbA1c & UACR in the PREVENT equations is an opportunity to individualize their CVD risk estimation. Read more: www.ajpmonline.org/article/S074...
We've learned a lot in our ten years of designing & implementing risk prediction models! We're looking forward to traveling to #cpdd26 to join our friends from @brownpublichealth.bsky.social to share what we've learned! @cpddorg.bsky.social
Findings from this analysis suggest that supply chain issues alone don't translate into a shortage, highlighting a need for a better system to identify true shortages that affect patients’ ability to access medications. Read more @jamanetworkopen.com jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Our machine learning maven Dr. Jenny Lo-Ciganic has done it again! This time, she was part of a team that improved prediction of hepatitis C infection using natural language processing of social determinants of health-related clinical notes. www.journal-of-hepatology.eu/article/S016...
Raising the ferritin cutoff to diagnose iron deficiency anemia sounds helpful, but who does it actually catch? Mostly premenopausal women who need dietary iron, not GI workups. New data from Drs. Anderson & Vajravelu: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
In this analysis, baseline HTN didn't influence initial analgesic choice in incident OA patients. Safer, evidence-based alternatives are needed for older adults with comorbid HTN. Read more: agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
With so many EHR interventions lately, alert fatigue is an important metric to consider. However, measurement methods aren't clearly or consistently defined, according to a 🆕review. Read more: academic.oup.com/jamia/advanc...
In this analysis of VHA data, 8.5% of users of a group of 29 different medications experienced disruptions related to the shortage. Ophthalmic and antipsychotic agents were more likely to experience disruption. Read more: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
CP3 alum Dr. Patience Dow led this paper suggesting that state Medicaid prescription caps were associated with lower overall use of prescription medications and more frequent acute care use. CP3 faculty Dr. Julie Donohue co-authored. Read more @jamahealthforum.com jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
In this commentary, CP3's Dr. Tim Anderson & co-authors describe new dyslipidemia management guidelines and how they emphasize shared decision making and avoid inflexible age-based thresholds. www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/...
Attending #ISPORAnnual? Check out this workshop featuring CP3's Dr Jenny Lo-Ciganic!
Health services research helps improve care, inform policy, and strengthen health systems. Join us in celebrating @academyhealth.bsky.social #HSRWeek! academyhealth.org/form/participate-2026-hsr-week
🆕paper led by CP3's Dr. Katie Suda shows that dentists who received education about guidelines for the management of & shared decision making about 🦷pain wrote fewer opioid-containing 💊prescriptions. Read more: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Our Visiting Scholar Adam Bress gave a fascinating talk on the latest research on blood biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia today. We're lucky to hear about this cutting edge work from one of the people leading it.
CP3 Visiting Scholar Adam Bress' visit was off to a great start this morning as he delivered a research talk as part of VA Pittsburgh's Research Week.